A new class-action lawsuit wants the city of Chicago to stop seizing cars used in certain crimes, and return vehicles to innocent owners who can’t afford to pay the hefty impound fees.

These ballooning fees, which often accrue as owners navigate an inter-departmental web of bureaucracy, can leave residents owing thousands of dollars to get their car back even if they were never charged, according to the suit and a WBEZ analysis of city data.

The lawsuit claims that’s exactly what happened to 51-year-old mechanic Spencer Byrd when police stopped his 1996 Cadillac sedan for a broken turn signal on June 21, 2016 and found heroin on a passenger. Byrd was never charged, according to the lawsuit, but police seized his car and held it until a judge ordered it’s release. But Byrd still doesn't have his car, according to the suit, because he first must pay more than $17,000 in storage and tow fees.

The suit challenges the way owners can avoid these fees, a process that requires a request be made in person for multiple administrative hearings and a finding of not liable under very narrow criteria. WBEZ found that between 2001 and 2017, more than 51 percent of owners were found liable because they didn’t request a hearing.

Friday, April 26, 2019

A Chicago judge has lambasted Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx's office for dropping charges against actor Jussie Smollett but pressing forward with similar charges against an unknown citizen.

Judge Marc Martin hammered prosecutors in a tirade from the bench earlier this month in a Rolling Meadows courtroom outside Chicago, demanding to know why there appeared to be a double standard.

The judge's screed was prompted by the case of 21-year-old Candace Clark, who is accused of giving a friend access to her bank account and then falsely telling police that money had been stolen from it. Clark is charged with a felony.

'I'd like to know why Ms. Clark is being treated differently than Jussie Smollett,' Judge Martin blasted from the bench, WFLD-TV reported. 'It's a disorderly conduct case. A lot less egregious than Mr. Smollett's case. I have a problem with it.'

The U.S. economy grew at a faster pace than expected in the first quarter and posted its best growth to start a year in six years.

First-quarter GDP expanded by 3.2% in the first quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected the U.S. economy increased by 2.5% in the first quarter. It was the first time since 2013 that first-quarter GDP topped 3%.

Disposable personal income increased by 3%, while prices increased by 1.3% when excluding food and energy. Overall prices climbed by 0.8% in the first quarter.

Federal law enforcement agents fanned out Thursday across Baltimore, raiding City Hall, the home of embattled Mayor Catherine Pugh and several other locations as the investigation into the mayor's business dealings widened.

Dave Fitz, an FBI spokesman, confirmed agents from the Baltimore FBI office and the Washington IRS office were executing search warrants at those locations Thursday morning, as well as at least three other addresses associated with Pugh. It was the first confirmation that federal authorities, as well as state officials, were investigating the mayor's activities.

Pugh remained inside her home during the raids, a police source confirmed.

Shortly after the raids began, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan called on Pugh, who has taken a leave of absence as mayor, to resign.

The independent state agency that regulates Maryland’s insurance industry announced Friday that it is conducting a review of insurers that gave money to Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh's "Healthy Holly" children’s book company.

Pugh, a Democrat, is facing accusations of self-dealing, calls for her resignation and an investigation by the state prosector after revelations that she received nearly $800,000 for her books from groups with ties to state and local government.

The Baltimore Sun reported that Kaiser Permanente paid Pugh more than $100,000 for copies of "Healthy Holly" at the same time it was seeking a $48 million contract from a city board controlled by the mayor; CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield said it donated $14,500 to Associated Black Charities to buy 2,000 books; the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund gave a $7,500 donation when Pugh was a state lawmaker sponsoring legislation it favored.

Today Mark Dice skewers a familiar target, CNN's Brian Stelter, as well as a less familiar but equally deserving one, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who wants to ban glass and steel skyscrapers in his city.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, his wife and his brother-in-law are under federal criminal investigation for a dubious residential property tax appeal that dogged him during his gubernatorial campaign last year, WBEZ has learned.

A law-enforcement source familiar with the investigation confirmed to WBEZ that the probe, which has not been revealed publicly until now, began last October and remains active. There are no signs that criminal charges are imminent.

WBEZ has also confirmed that Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker’s personal assistant who was involved in the property tax appeal, Christine Lovely, is being represented by one of Chicago’s most high-powered lawyers. Her attorney, Reid Schar, is a former federal prosecutor who helped convict ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges.

The developments demonstrate that the billionaire governor and his wife may face a serious legal threat arising from their controversial pursuit of a property tax break on a 126-year-old mansion they purchased next to their Gold Coast home.

The two brothers who Chicago police said were involved in an allegedly staged attack on "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett are filing a federal lawsuit against his attorneys.

Gloria Schmidt, the attorney for the Osundairo brothers, is holding a news conference Tuesday morning to discuss the lawsuit, which has been filed against Smollett's attorneys, Mark Geragos, Tina Glandian and the Geragos & Geragos Law Firm.

The end always justifies the means with the left. So that makes it acceptable to socialist Bernie Sanders to allow Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, to vote from the Supermax prison in Colorado.

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Happy Easter to you. And while an Easter post at Da Tech Guy would be nice, it is Passover season now too. Which brings us to mind the Exodus, albeit not of the Biblical type. From that post: Tales from the Illinois Exodus–Part Three.

Two ranking executives inside the Cook County State’s Attorney's Office have submitted their resignations — including State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s chief ethics officer, April Perry, whom Foxx cited as the person who advised her to “recuse” herself from the Jussie Smollett case that has rocked the Chicago office, Fox News learned Thursday.

Mark Rotert, the director of the office's Conviction Integrity Unit, has also submitted his resignation, according to a Foxx spokesperson. Perry and Rotert are scheduled to work their last days on the job in May.

"While I feel lucky to have been able to spend the last 15 years of my career in public service, I am looking forward to my next endeavor in the private sector where I have the opportunity to continue to work toward increasing the safety of our community," Perry wrote in an April 15 letter obtained by Fox News via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Chicago's top prosecutor has been criticized for how she handled Smollett’s criminal case — including her questionable recusal and how her office suddenly dropped the charges against the 36-year-old "Empire" actor on March 26.

Police arrested 26 kids Wednesday night after a group of about 500 teens descended on downtown Chicago, forcing hundreds of cops into the streets to try to corral them.

Fighting, cellphone thefts and disobedience ran rampant as the group arrived in the city during the evening hours.

Approximately 200 police officers arrived on horseback, foot and bikes and made several arrests as the rowdy crowds spread throughout the busy streets and parks of the downtown area. Officers called in Chicago Public Schools principals to talk to some of the kids and try to help restore order, Chicago police Chief Fred Waller said.

The largest of the groups dispersed and boarded Chicago Transit Authority trains, police said.

The Chicago area’s population declined for the fourth year in a row in 2018, according to the latest Census Bureau estimates.

There were 22,000 fewer residents in the 14-county metro area than in 2017, a drop of 0.2 percent, and the first time since 2010 that the area's population has slipped below 9.5 million people. Cook County, which accounts for 55 percent of the population in the metro area, lost 24,000 residents. DuPage and Lake counties, the second- and third-largest, respectively, each lost about 2,000 residents. The exurbs of Will, Kane and Kendall counties saw modest growth of fewer than 2,000 residents each.

Wow, DuPage County, which is west of Crook County, until recently was a GOP bastion. The Democrats have been making gains there recently.

As they used to say there, "If you like DuPage County, thank a Republican."

Monday, April 15, 2019

While Part 5 looks mainly at the suburbs and even travels as far south as Decatur, Illinois, Victor Maggio gives a parting shot at what was called "the City that Works" when the first Mayor Daley reigned.

"When you look real close at Chicago's most violent neighborhoods," Maggio comments late in this clip, "you see extremely violent crime taking place on a mass scale. And when you add in the economic depression, the vast areas of empty land where businesses and homes once stood, along with abandoned buildings everywhere you look. There are very few food options, high taxes, red light cameras, and police surveillance cameras and cops everywhere, it makes you feel like you entered a police state that is on the verge of collapse."

True that. And Maggio didn't even mention the Chicago's millstone, the pension bomb.

Also in the video is the tragic fatal police shooting of a mentally disturbed woman in Elgin who set her car on fire while she was sitting in it.

Mark Dice is right. Slavery reparations used to be a fringe position among the far left. But the far left is today's Democratic Party. And about half of the Democrats running for president support reparations for slavery, which as you know was abolished after the Civil War, which by the way two of my ancestors fought on the Union side.

Vermillion's Pack, as I wrote in my first review, is a "former Marine general, a onetime superintendent at West Point, and a one-term governor, by choice, of Montana."

As with Evil In Disguise, the plot centers around the struggles of a man scarred by a horrific experience in our southwest Asian wars.

This man, Josh Pancrest, takes a different tact than the focus of the prior novel as he recovers from his ordeal.

Panchrest was a cadet during Pack's stint at West Point, and like the general, played football for the Army Black Knights. "Comfort kills" is a credo Panchrest lives by. As a runner in a small way I guess I do. And unfortunately in my many years in the workforce, I've encountered some arrogant bosses that you just want to smack--but none recently--I'd like to add. Such as the colonel and the captain who send Panchrest and some grunts on a mission to capture an HVT, that is, a High Value Target, in Afghanistan. A mission that was set up to fail.

That failure haunts Panchrest in his next job, as an airborne forest firefighter for the National Forest Service in Montana, where he learns that sometimes doing the right thing isn't always the best career move, particularly as he is someone with a fixed moral compass.

Montana is a vast state with not many people. Fortunately one of them of course is Pack, an Odysseus, as Vermillion phrases it, to Panchrest's Telemachus.

There are many enjoyable twists and turns in Novel #5 and some surprising heroes. Oh, Pack puts a couple of arrogant members of Congress in their proper place. Good for him.

As with # 4, Comfort Kills is an engaging read and a book I strongly recommend. And you don't have to have read the previous books to enjoy this one.

In Part Four of In the Line of Duty, Chicago, Victor Maggio presents more video footage of what Chicago Police officers confront in their difficult jobs.

And cops make mistakes too--deadly ones.

On the positive side, the CPD, saves lives, such as one incident from this winter when a man nearly died after he jumped into a frigid Lake Michigan to retrieve his dog.Warning: Obscene language, graphic violence, and death.

The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County and a spokesperson from the Department of Law said it "pursues the full measure of damages allowed under the false statements ordinance. This follows his refusal to reimburse the City of Chicago for the cost of police overtime spent investigating his false police report on January 29, 2019."

"The aliens built a free computer network so they could learn everything about every human who logged in. Then they sold cheap listening devices that could answer nearly any question from every human within range. And the aliens heard much more. Before long the aliens knew when and where to strike--so they could destroy humanity and take the planet for themselves."

Another "fresh face" of the freshman class of the Democratic House caucus, Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) first used the race card as she struggled to defend Omar's odious remarks amid criticism this morning on MSLSD, "The do this all the time to us," she said, "especially women of color."

The Mueller Report, in a redacted form, will be released very soon. Which upsets hypocrite US Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). But Nadler was against making public of Ken Starr's report on the 1990s investigation of Bill Clinton.

Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar is facing backlash after her speech at a Muslim rights group's event in which she described the September 11, 2001 terror attacks as “some people did something."

Omar spoke at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) fundraiser last month, where she called upon other Muslim Americans to “make people uncomfortable” with their activism and presence in the society and criticized the Jewish state.

On the cover of today's New York Post is a headline that reads, "Here’s your something." On 9/11 nearly 3,000 people were murdered.

Tuesday, April 09, 2019

I'm behind in my video viewing. And unlike some bloggers, I want to watch the YouTube clips that I post.

Here is Part 3 of Victor Maggio's In the Line of Duty, Chicago. There's a wide breadth in this edition as he catches an activist who tries to create a false narrative after a police shooting. Bloody Chicago isn't afraid to blow the whistle at bad cops, and he looks back at all of the violent Occupy Chicago and Black Block protests from a few years ago, including the anarchist attack on cops where I was among the injured.

Warm weather, at least for now, has returned to Chicago. For me in suburban Morton Grove that means running in shorts. In Chiraq it means more shootings. Yesterday 15 people were shot and three of them were killed. One of the fatalities was shot a few blocks away from the site of a West Englewood baby shower where six people, including two children, were gunned down.

Job creation posted a solid rebound in March, with nonfarm payrolls expanding by 196,000 and the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

That was better than the 175,000 Dow Jones estimate and comes after a dismal February that had economists wondering whether the decade-old economic expansion was nearing an end. The unemployment rate met expectations.

The Chicago police union and dozens of Cook County police chiefs banded together Thursday to announce a "no confidence" vote in State's Attorney Kim Foxx. The press conference came after her office's controversial decision to drop charges against Jussie Smollett over his alleged staged attack.

They gathered at the FOP headquarters over what they claim is Foxx's mishandling of certain felony cases.

"We cannot stand for this any longer Kim Foxx needs to resign and she should do it quickly," said Kevin Graham, FOP President.

"She's putting criminals back on the street either during the process, not charging then at all or allowing them on the street to commit again," said Steven Stelter, West Suburban Chiefs of Police Association. "Many times the hoops we have to go through to get a felony charge and most of the time they are not approved or charges dismissed in court without an officer's opinion."

It's deadline day for "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett to reimburse the city more than $130,000 for the cost of the investigation into the alleged racist and homophobic attack that police determined was a hoax.

Last week, Cook County prosecutors dropped 16 counts of disorderly conduct against Smollett, after he agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bail, and performed 16 hours of community service.

Smollett has maintained his innocence, and said he was "truthful and consistent" from the start, but prosecutors have said they do not believe he is innocent, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said the actor owes Chicago an apology.

Last Thursday, the mayor had the city’s Law Department send Smollett a letter titled "Re: Repayment of Investigation Costs for False Police Report," requiring "immediate payment of the $130,106.15 expended on overtime hours in the investigation of this matter."

Wednesday, April 03, 2019

While the news that Chicago elected its first black female--and openly lesbian--mayor is a national story today, there is another development that is being overlooked.

Ald. Pat O'Connor (40th) was the City Council floor leader for Mayor Richard M. Daley as well as his lame duck successor, Rahm Emanuel.

O'Connor was defeated yesterday by Andre Vasquez, a democratic socialist. Two other socialists, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) and Daniel La Spata (1st) won in Chicago first round of aldermanic elections and the mini-leftist wave brought Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) to victory as well.

That means Chicago will have four socialists among its 50 members. And possibly five as one race is too close to call. Rod Blagojevich's sister-in-law, Deborah Mell (33rd) trails socialist Rossana Rodriguez by 24 votes.

Chicago, the only major American city that is losing population, is a fiscal disaster. Its pension plans are unsustainable and default seems likely.

Time, once a great magazine, proves that it is as useful as a broken clock when it put socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on its cover--dated April 1, yes, April Fools Day--under the headline, "The Phenom."

Monday, April 01, 2019

The Today Show's Al Roker is in the former Barrow, Alaska reporting on human-caused climate change.

Where was Roker--who once took a dump in his pants in the White House and then went "commando" for the rest his visit there--when the 2019 Polar Vortex invaded Marathon Pundit world headquarters in Morton Grove, Illinois two months ago?

Al Roker headed to Utqiagvik, Alaska, considered ground zero for climate change, to learn from the scientists gathering critical information there that could help save the Earth.

Formerly known as Barrow, the community sits at the farthest north tip of the country. When Al arrived on Saturday, March 30, Utqiagvik hit a record high of 33, which was 36 degrees above average. To put it into perspective, that would be like New York City hitting 91 or Miami reaching 117 on the same spring day.

Wow, break out the swimsuits and head to the Arctic ocean! Better yet, in the spirt of Roker going commando, just skinny dip instead!

There's just one problem. That story, dated today, leaves out one detail.

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